GOWEN’S TRAGIC DEATH

The Railroad Magnate Takes His Own Life Shooting Himself In His Room In Washington--- Friends Unable To Assign Any Reason For Suicide

Washington, Dec. 14, 1889 ---Franklin B. Gowen, the well-known railroad officer and lawyer, was found dead in his room at Wormley’s Hotel this afternoon. He had shot himself.

The immediate circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Gowen are shrouded in mystery. The last seen of him at the hotel before his body was discovered, was about 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon, when he came down to the dining room to take lunch. He then appeared to be in excellent spirits, and gave no apparent manifestation of existing trouble.

Later in the afternoon, a chambermaid of the hotel went to the room occupied by Mr. Gowen, but found the key was on the inside, and Mr. Gowen in the room. At an ealy hour this morning, the chambermaid went again to the room, and found the door still locked, but paid no attention to it. About noon, she went to the door again, and this time, finding it still oocked, she became alarmed, and informed Mr. Wormley, the proprietor of the hotel, of the condition of affairs.

Mr. Wormley immediately made an investigation. Getting a chair to stand on, he looked through the transom, when a horrible sight met his gaze. Lying on the floor of the room was the dead body of Mr. Gowen, and beside his knee lay a pistol of small calibre. The body was found lying on the floor with the head under the table. The dead man had evidently stood up before the mirror and fired the fatal shot, for his blood had splashed upon the foot of the bureau. The weapon was of 38 calibre, new, and from the nature of the wound it must have been pressed closely against the suicide’s right temple, for the burned powder had been driven into his head. The pistol itself lay on the hearth, several feet from the body, and its ivory handle was crimsoned with blood, which had also soaked through Mr. Gowen’s coat and underwear. Through the wounds in the head, the brains were oozing.

The body was cold, which at first led to the belief that death had occurred yesterday. But, later developments have modified that belief. A gentleman who occupied the room adjoining that where the suicide was committed, is habitually in his room, except between the hours of 7 and 10 o’clock at night, and he is confident that he would have heard the report of a pistol, if fired during last night. Then the droplight was found overturned and unlit on the floor. The bed had apparently been occupied, though the covering had been carelessly arranged, and confirmatory evidence that the deed was committed this morning was found by the Coroner in the perfect pliability of the limbs of the body, which would probably have stiffened, if it had lain overnight.

The friends of Mr. Gowen were indignated tonight at the hasty and irregular manner in which his body was removed from the hotel, which, they say, was not becoming treatment of a man of his high character. It appears that as soon as the landlord discovered the body, he summoned a policeman. A man of slight build was helped through the opening for the transom, which had been removed, and he turned the key, which was on the inside, and unlocked the door, admitting the people in the corridor. Without awaiting the action of the Coroner, the body was hastily removed to the morgue at the New Jersey Avenue Station.

As soon as the news reached the friends of the deceased, Representatives Marsh and Reilly, of Pennsylvania, hurried off to the Police Station, and protested earnestly against this action. They communicated with Coroner Patterson, who responded promptly, and, after viewing the body, decided, as is customary in cases where suicide is evident, that an inquest was unnecessary. He also authorized the removal of the body, which was accordingly turned over to the friends of the deceased. Undertaker Spears was summoned, and soon removed the body to his establishment, where it was decently arranged.

Soon after 9 o’clock, Franklin L. Gowen, the nephew and business partner of the deceased, arrived at Washington from Philadelphia, and proceeded immediately to the undertaker’s shop. He was accompanied by J. E. Hood and Captain Linden. By his direction, the body was placed in the plain oak box which had been made ready for it; the cover was screwed down, and it was taken immediately to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Station, where it was placed aboard the 10:30 train, and carried to Philadelphia.

No doubt is felt by Mr. Gowen’s friends here that he committed suicide, but everybody is at a loss for anything like plausible explanation of the motive for the act.

All of the tesimony that could be gotten tonight, was to the effect that Mr. Gowen was an extremely temperate man, and certainly it could not be learned that he had indulged in intoxicating liquors during his last stay here. Mr. Gowen was well known publicly. He was one of the counsel for individual producers who appeared before the House Committee on Manufactures, during the last Congress, when it was investigating the subject of trusts, and has since been here frequently in the conduct of cased arising before the Inter-State Commerce Commission. The news of his suicide was a great shock to the members of the Commission, who looked upon him as a shrewd, able, and courageous lawyer, and regarded him as one of the foremost men in his profession that have ever appeared before them. He was well liked by them, and his loss is keenly felt.

Since Monday, when he arrived in Washington, Mr. Gowen devoted himself to the business which had brought him here---the oil cases of George Rice against the Louisville and Nashville, and other Southern and Western railroad companies, and he had busied himself in taking depositions required to complete his case.

Philadelphia, December 14, 1889---Without a known fact in the circumstances of the tragedy to sustain them, there are plenty of well-informed men in this city tonight, who are saying that they do not believe Franklin B. Gowen committed suicide, but that he was assassinated in revenge for the score or more of Mollie Maguires he caused to be executed about ten years ago.

This shows some measure of the surprise caused in railroad, business, legal and social circles, by the telegrams from Washington this afternoon, saying that Mr. Gowen had shot himself. A man of superb physique, splendid health, regular habits, without a vice, of dauntless courage, and the most buoyant and sanguine spirit, Mr. Gowen was the last man in the world that those who knew him would think likely to take his own life.

His devoted wife and beautiful and accomplished daughter, who comprise all of his immediate family, are at their beautiful Mount Airy residence, surrounded by sympathizing friends, but utterly prostrated by the shock.

Mr. Gowen’s next closest relative in this city is his nephew, Francis L. Gowen, a rising young lawyer, who occupied the same office with his uncle. The nephew, at 3 o’clock, had confirmation of the sad news. Mr. Delaney, the chief clerk, broke down completely, and when Mr. F. L. Gowen came out of the inner office, he was visibly affected.

“What can I say,” he exclaimed, “at this appalling intelligence, which is just confirmed? Mr. Gowen went away from this office last Monday, as bright in spirits and apparently as happy and seemingly as sound in mind, memory, and understanding as ever he was inb all his busy and energetic life. We are simply overwhelmed at this calamity. What can I say more?”

The dead man’s offices were filled with friends who expressed their sorrow at the sudden calamity that had deprived Philadelphia of one of its most brilliant leaders in thought and action.

George D. B. Keim, President of the Reading Coal and Iron Company, at one time President of the Reading Railroad Company, and for many years chief counsel of the Company, was found in his office in the Reading Railroad Building. He was overwhemed at the sudden death of ex-President Gowen. He said, “I was never more shocked in my life, than at the melancholy news a few moments ago. The last man whose death I expected was Mr. Gowen. It is inexplicable, and I am momentarily expecting some explanation of this sad ending of one of the most brilliant men this country has ever produced. No man knew President Gowen better than I did. He was only fifty years old, and apparently happy, contented, and hopeful of the future.

“With a family to whom he was devoted, comfortably fixed, as far as this world’s goods were concerned, I cannot explain the sidden ending of a life as brilliant and useful as that of Franklin B. Gowen. I know of no cause which could have led to his death in this sad manner. He was a great man, in Napolean’s definition of greatness, when he said, “A great man is a man who can accomplish great things.”

Albert H. O’Brien, Assistant General Manager of the Reading Railroad, said, “He was an aggressive man, strong in his convictions. Possessed of much warmth of feeling, he loved his friends. Like all aggressive or affirmative natures, he made enemies; but he had troops of friends, who were bound to him with hooks of steel. He had enough of this world’s goods, being possessed of at least $250,000 in the Junior Bonds, so called, of the Reading 5 per cents. There is no known reason for this sad ending of a man dowered with such intellectual gifts, as those possessed by Franklin B. Gowen. I cannot realize the fact that Gowen is dead.”

J. Brin on White, for many years Controller of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company, said, “Gowen never committed suicide. I will never believe it on the present evidence. He was either murdered, or the pistol was accidentally discharged.”

Col. Myers, another lifelong friend, spoke in the same way. “Gowen never shot himself purposely,” he said.

Mr. Gowen’s friends here say that from the time he became President of the Reading Railroad Company in 1872, his whole life was wrapped up in the possibilities of this corporation. It was to him as a huge kaleidoscope; each aspect of which created new splendors, upon which he doted, and his visionary disposition caused him to ponder over the development of theories to a degree which carried him beyond the bounds of practical business plans. He was persuasive and possessed of a magnetism which attracted attention and admiration from enemies and friends alike. He was an optimist of the most exaggerated type; and in his management of the Reading, he had one theory, and could only see one result by its application.

After acquiring 90,000 acres of coal lands, he reasoned that the Reading would profit by the production of coal at a loss. He argued that, while the Reading might lose 20 cents per ton by mining coal, it would make such a profit by hauling the coal to market, that the loss by mining would be trifling; and he even urged that the output of coal should be increased 3,000,000 tons per annum. He failed to consider, however, that the enormous increase of production would demoralize the coal market, and cause a contraction of profits upon the coal already produced. It is believed by many that he never abandoned the hope that he would be reinstated as President of the Company, and that he had cherished this hope of late, until it became a delusion which aided to unbalance his mind.

He was the legal champion of the third preference bondholders, who have insisted that they should have been paid 7 and one half per cent interest on their bonds, instead of 2 and one half per cent, for the eighteen months ending November 30, 1888.

The income bonds, of which Mr. Gowen held about $250,000, have depreciated in value till the first preference bonds lost five per cent; the seconds 13 per cent; and the thirds, 7 per cent. He also held 5,000 shares of Reading stock, which has shrunk from $32 to $20 per share within ten years; a loss of $60,000 upon Mr. Gowen’s holdings. It was a matter of speculation on the street whether these losses and the realization that all efforts toward being restored to the Presidency of the Company were futile, impelled him to take his life.

Making His Own Career

The career of Franklin B. Gowen was in many ways remarkable. Starting in life with only his talents for capital, he rose to a commanding place in railroad and financial management.

There were times also, when he showed that in other lines of work, he might have stood high. His ability as an advocate was brilliant. There was little occasion to employ it in directions to call for public applause in the dry, stern work set before him in the management of a decrepit railroad company. At times he manifested no aptitude for politics which offered many allurements to him, and in which, no doubt, he might have engaged with conspicuous success. His business ventures, organized in connection with the railroad company, were sagacious. In his personality, he enjoyed alike the respect of the magnates, of whom he had to seek favors and the entire confidence of the thousands whose savings supplied, in good part, the original stock lists of the enterprises which he managed.

It was as a railroad man, that his life became of chief interest to the public. Whether or not, in view of the temptations laid before him for the easy and rapid acquirement of fame and wealth, an occupation was agreeable to him which kept him at the grindstone in perpetual drudgery, Mr. Gowen never made complaint. Such of cheer and promise as was tarnished for years to the patient stockholders of his enterprises came from him; and even to the speculative element, whose interest in what he did, reached scarcely beyond the Stock Exchange, he stood as the embodiment of these enterprises. His ingenuity, his tireless and enthusiastic devotion to his work; his vast fund of hope, and his evident honesty of purpose, did more than anything else, to keep the Reading properties afloat, when they most needed a buoyant influence.

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